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Inspiring Inspiration

How connecting with our immediate environment can draw forth inspiration and what we can learn from being in the here and now.

For as long as we are alive to life, or more significantly, that we are open to having an honest exchange with whatever we find around us, the force of inspiration will forever be apparent in our world. To wake up each day and see the world in a newborn light is the seed of inspiration, as it propels us to break through the boundaries of what has already been and begin acting upon what could become. To be inspired is to grow conscious of the abiding forces that enrich our life.

Awakening to the essence of what we are experiencing immediately opens the way to limitless, untold possibilities. Like an actor caught up in the whirlwind of a character’s emotions, what flows forth from that moment on is an expression of a reaction occurring from within; the spirit of everything we are right now fusing with what has been encountered from without. This sense of interaction or feedback with our environment crystalizes a sense of oneness in our minds-eye, leading to exalted self-expression. The more often this process happens, the more refined the skills that enabled that initial inscape become, allowing us to mine deeper into our artistic reservoir of thoughts and emotions; the defining attributes that embody all that we create. Before long, everything that we think, say and do is tinged with the sensibility to respond and build upon what we find. The rivers of inspiration have broken through the dams of the status quo and have begun to flow.

It is through these unique and impartial insights that we come to create avenues that connect us to the ever-evolving consciousness of the universe, adding our own aspects to the tree-branching complexity of life. To have a friendliness to the outside world, therefore, is imperative, as it gives us the appropriate ‘open’ life-state to appreciate the wellspring of inspiration around us, allowing new perspectives to stream forth. To enhance upon this further, it is when experiencing another person’s insights that we come to expand our own horizons and it is this openness to another’s ideas that ultimately comes to widen the scope to which we see our future. The interplay with others, as well as our own imagination, is our greatest ally when the urge for inspiration truly arises, as it speaks in a way that goes beyond what we already know and encourages an increase in our own interpretation and creativity. Realising this, the relevance of appreciating other people’s point of view starts to become as important as merely appreciating our own.

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What can sometimes get in the way of inspiration sprouting it’s leaves, however, is the muted observance of formality; submissively excepting how things are to be how they always will be. This can apply as much to ourselves as to the outside world, but in truth, what lies behind all phenomena is the nurturing influence of adaption and it has been our ability to capitalize upon this force that has marked us out as a species. To be constantly inspired is to never lose grip of this mystic aspect of life; using what is available in front of us to express and construct what is yet to be. The current revolutions happening across the Arab Spring could be used as an example of this happening on a grand people-centric scale, of countries shedding their skin to enable a new collective identity to emerge.

All of that said, inspiration could equally come out of the most obscure and unsurprising situations as it can from momentous and breathtaking events. Having the foresight and practical ability to combine two seemingly alien and lifeless things can sometimes lead to the greatest forms being devised. It was through the inspired eyes of the pioneers of Hip Hop that drum breaks taken from existing records and looped in a certain way came to eventually spawn a unique genre of its own and a worldwide music phenomenon. Similarly, it wasn’t until Thomas Edison took the carbon filament and combined it with the then existing technology in electric light that the first long-lasting incandescent light bulb was produced, lighting the way towards the technological development of the modern world. Consequently, it is through recognizing the spirit of invention that we ultimately mark out our true worth as inspired human beings, as it is through invention that the world becomes illuminated, whether via the medium of a painting, a technical device or a simple idea. In other words, your enlightenment can come to be other people’s enlightenment and the greatest types of inspiration are value-creating, as they invariably take the form of things that heighten our awareness of what it means to be alive, inspiring the youthfulness inside us all to live on.

Bringing this in line with poetry, the English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley once expressed: ‘Poetry compels us to feel that which we perceive and to imagine that which we know’ and it is through this harmony with everything around us that words can come to unleash the power of our thoughts and emotions and our thoughts and emotions can unleash the power of words. Without inspiration, this cycle would fail to turn and life would exist to cease.

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